


Uncomplicated

by Brin_brin



Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Adventure
Genre: Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22648282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brin_brin/pseuds/Brin_brin
Summary: Taichi has a stable career and Yamato's band are a hit, but no matter how fine things seem, relationships are never uncomplicated.(Set 3 years after Echos cont. But you don't need to read that to get this)
Relationships: Ishida Yamato | Matt Ishida & Yagami Taichi | Tai Kamiya, Ishida Yamato | Matt Ishida/Yagami Taichi | Tai Kamiya
Kudos: 15





	1. Friday Night

**Author's Note:**

> I read an unfinished fic a while ago that started with Taichi and Yamato being a few years into their relationship and going through a rough patch. I liked the idea, because it's relatable. After a while, the little things about your partner become big things, and perhaps the quirks you loved about them before suddenly lose their shine.  
> But don't worry, this is still a Taito/Yamachi story.

The night was warm and humid, much to the dismay of a certain wild haired brunette who stumbled from the crowded bar to get some fresh air. Whether it was from the weather, the drink, or the unsettling realisation that he was becoming too old for Odaiba's nightlife, Taichi felt nauseous.

Truth be told, none of the above were his primary concern.

His dress shoes were satisfactorily dulled and sticky, and with his navy shirt untucked, sleeves rolled to the elbow, a stranger wouldn’t pick that the young man was a suit playing at somewhat younger version of himself.

Strangers wouldn’t, no.

But Taichi wasn’t so lucky.

“Taichi? What are you doing out on your own?”

In a regrettable and nauseating movement, Taichi’s head followed his pricked ears in the direction of the sudden interruption to his intoxicated walk to nowhere in particular.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to rid himself of the dizzying sensation, opening them to focus on the blank but mildly curious expression of an old friend.

“Oh, uh, hey Koushiro.” Taichi blinked at the other young man and felt immediately dishevelled next to his friend’s tidy appearance. It took half a moment for it to sink in that he had been asked a question. Koushiro hadn’t asked him what he was doing, or why he was out, but rather why he was alone, “What do you mean, on my own?”

“Well you’re in your work clothes and it _is_ Friday, so I assumed you had a work function of sorts, but it seems you’re alone. At the very least, I would have expected Yamato to be with you while he’s in town.”

Taichi sighed lowly and dug his hands deep into his pockets at the mention of a certain blonde celebrity, who was in fact in town.

“Yeah, well, I’ve come to learn very recently that Yamato doesn’t mind me going out while he’s here. In fact, he probably prefers it.”

Taichi’s eyes burned with resentment as he recalled the motivation for this evenings’ adventures, but seeing how his ambiguous accusations only seemed to confuse the younger, yet tonight more mature of the two of them, Taichi decided to avoid that subject for now.

“What about you? What are you doing out on your own?”

“Actually I was in fact at a work function. Because it’s Friday.”

_Typical logical Koushiro._

Taichi hummed an acknowledgement in reply, shuffling slightly on the pavement.

He didn’t want to go home, but he couldn’t exactly stay out either. Perhaps running into someone he knew had presented a convenient opportunity.

“You wanna go to a coffee shop or something Koushiro? I could use a bite to eat.”

Taichi’s tone carried an uncharacteristic melancholy that Koushiro couldn’t quite attribute to intoxication, and so on a hunch that his friend simply wanted company, he agreed.

The pair found a late night cafe that mostly contained a sad and eclectic mix of people who were either avoiding their family or their own hangover, of which Taichi decided he was both.

He wasn’t actually particularly hungry, but in the interest of maintaining his ruse Taichi ordered the toast and soup special. To no one’s surprise, Koushiro ordered oolong tea.

“Still addicted to that stuff I see.”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, my colleagues have given me the nickname ‘Kou-cha’, you know, as in ‘black tea’....”

Koushiro went to explain the joke until Taichi’s lopsided smile and faint chuckle indicated he didn’t have to.

“Ya know, I really miss hanging out. All of us, as a group.” Taichi watched a drop of condensation roll down the cool glass of oolong tea, and he felt a nostalgic smile creep across his face remembering times that were in most ways more stressful, but in others so much more simple. “Agumon and the others are all so…. Uncomplicated.”

Taichi’s intent staring contest with the droplet is interrupted by Koushiro’s hands wrapping around the glass. He flicks his line of vision up to see his friend looking somewhat disappointed.

“I’m working on it...”

Taichi feels his stomach churn slightly as he realises how his rambling may have come across. Koushiro had in fact been working exceptionally hard, for a few years now on setting up a stable and permanent gate between the two worlds they loved so dearly. Taichi always had a terrible way with words. Maybe if he was a bit more tactful, he and Yamato....

_No, let’s not go there now._

“Hey, no, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Not at all. It’s just…” Taichi let out a deep sigh and turned his eyes out the window, in the general direction of the apartment and person he was currently avoiding. “Things have been a bit tense with Yamato recently. And I’m craving ‘the good old days' I guess.”

“Things were plenty tense between you and Yamato back then too.”

Taichi smirked at how right Koushiro was. But nonetheless, this was a brand of tension the bearer of courage from days past wasn't ready to deal with.

At least, not at 1am on what was now Saturday morning.

“Hey, could I crash at your place tonight?”


	2. Friday Afternoon

As it would turn out, 1pm on a Saturday afternoon wasn't much better for Taichi's nerve. He'd spent the better part of the morning taking up space on Koushiro's lounge until the responsible host used the excuse of him needing to work to force the troubled brunette to face the day. 

_ Procrastination isn't a quality I'd usually associate with you.  _

Were the words Koushiro left him as Taichi muttered something about going for lunch, and then maybe the store before heading home. Taichi knew it wasn't like him to avoid the issue at hand, and as his shaking hand turned the unlocked door handle, he started to wonder at what point in this relationship he'd started to lose himself.

When he laid eyes on his partner, looking so elegant while idly strumming his guitar in the living area, Taichi thought for a moment his resentment could melt away. But it seemed that it took less than a moment for those endless blue eyes to bore into him with all the fury of an Antarctic blizzard. 

After an intense few moments of eye contact, both young men did something neither of them expected.

Nothing.

Yamato cleared his throat slightly and turned his gaze back to his guitar while Taichi dropped his keys and went to pour himself some oolong tea from the fridge, having a sudden appreciation for Koushiro's love for the bitter yet refreshing taste. 

It was another minute or so before Yamato punctured the silence.

"You're still wearing your work clothes." 

Taichi chuckled under his breath at the redundant observation.

"Are you implying you'd rather me be wearing someone else's clothes?" 

The comeback didn't have any of the playfulness it might have had a few years ago and left a sharp and bitter taste in Taichi's mouth unrelated to the tea. It was the unpleasant aftertaste of throwing up walls against someone that had usually been so apt at tearing them down. 

"I'm  _ implying _ that you should have come home to change into  _ your own _ clothes."

Taichi chuckled again, a bit louder and more sarcastically this time, staring his partner down as he recalled the reason he hadn't come home.

-

"I think I'm going to do it Yama." 

"Do what?"

Taichi made his entrance into the apartment and promptly loosened his tie, dumping it unceremoniously on a chair along with his work bag. He looked down on them like broken shackles and turned his mischievous grin to his long time partner with enthusiasm.

"I'm gonna quit." 

Taichi waited in anticipation for support or at the very least engagement, but felt left teetering on the edge of excitement and anxiety when the blonde tightened his lips and flicked his eyes away. 

Yamato gave a mildly interested hum and scratched behind his neck in thought, carefully crafting a response. 

"Do you think it's a good idea to throw away your career like that? It's just, I don't know how much longer the band is going to be together, we're really getting to each other and management has taken us in a direction we're not happy with..."

Yamato tapered off and looked uncomfortably away from Taichi's eyebrows which furrowed deeply at the somewhat hypocritical reaction to his news. 

"So? You've been so successful. Aren't you each sitting on a pile?"

Without making eye contact, Yamato gave a noncommittal shrug, nodding his head slightly, causing Taichi's stomach to knot uncomfortably.

"... Aren't you?"

"Yes, look, I mean, there's money, just not a  _ lifetime's _ amount of money, maybe? Things have happened and I've become… accustomed to certain things. Anyway, it would be good for you to keep up a routine, and having your income plus what I've made from my career-" 

"Accustomed to certain things? Like what, Yamato?"

Taichi interrupted. Playing the role of the supportive partner had taken commitment and sacrifice, and until now he felt he'd asked for little in return. Every day, he'd work at maintaining a semblance of an average life, because that's what Yamato wanted for him, and so he pretended that's what he wanted too. Perhaps once Taichi would have tried to understand the musician's logic and felt comforted by his partner wanting to keep his personal and private lives separate. But his underlying feelings didn't take much of a push to breach the surface these days, and Taichi couldn't help but wonder about what clearly important things Yamato had become so _accustomed_ to. 

"It's not like we go out or do anything, and you sure don't seem keen on including me in your life, or your plans, or your decisions. When you're in Odaiba all you want to do is stay in here and hide from the 'press', have you become accustomed to avoiding me? What is it?"

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air and Yamato's lack of immediate rebuttal sent a wave of unease over Taichi, making him feel slightly dizzy. 

"That's it, isn't it? Me having a job keeps me away from you." 

"Taichi, can we please just say it would be wise for you to keep your job and leave it at that?"

Taichi felt tears of anger well in his eyes as an issue he thought had been put to bed was apparently rearing its' ugly head yet again.

"Where is it?"

"What do-" 

"WHERE IS IT?" 

Taichi didn't get to enjoy Yamato's validating expression of panic before running and locking himself in the bathroom. 

He frantically started pulling the cap off every product and checking every crack of the room. This was the last place he hid it and and judging by Yamato's desperate pleas it was here again. 

"Damnit, Taichi you know I'm only trying to protect you! I don't want you to get mixed up in my bullshit!" 

Yamato haphazardly grabed a handful of cutlery from the kitchen drawers, assorted silverware dropping noisily to the floor as he used the handle of a fork to open the thumb turn lock.

He falls through the open door just in time to see Taichi digging a small white bag out of the cap of a can of dry shampoo, a look of sad affirmation hardening on the brunettes' face.

"Because of course I'd never use dry shampoo, right?"

Taichi throws the substance and the bottle at a resigned looking Yamato before storming out into the Odaiba twilight. 


	3. Saturday

"So we got in a fight. Doesn't explain what you've been doing since last night." 

Taichi was brought back to present day, and the present set of blue eyes that searched him for an explanation. His insides burned with the unease of both loving and hating the person before him. How could something that felt so right, go so wrong? This isn't what love is supposed to be like, is it? Are things supposed to be this hard? 

"I ran into Koushiro, he let me stay at his place,"  Taichi indulged in the look of jealousy that crossed Yamato's features,  "It was good seeing him." 

Yamato stood and followed Taichi to the other room, the later discarding last night's musty clothes in lieu of something more comfortable. 

"I'm tired today though, I'm gonna have a nap." 

"Didn't get much sleep, did you?"  The blonde seethed from the bedroom door, regarding the other with scepticism. 

Taichi peered at him through a yawn and irrationality started to get annoyed. 

_ What have I ever done to lose his trust? _

"Where did you sleep?" 

"God Yamato, I slept on the lounge! I'm tired because we didn't get home till late and sofa beds suck, alright?" 

The exhausted brunette turned to climb into bed and sleep off his mood, but firm and slightly shaky fingers grabbed his shoulder and turned him around. 

"And why were the two of you out so late?" 

Taichi was tired in more ways than one, and so full of a negative emotions he couldn't quite identify he thought he might cry. He took a deep breath through his nose and matched the intensity of the blondes' gaze, but he couldn't hide the crack in his voice.

"Of course something that starts with your transgressions ends up in an interrogation against me,"  Taichi gripped Yamato's fingers and pried them from his shoulder, "You're always so quick to tell me what _I'm_ doing wrong, but after my discovery yesterday I can't help but feel like _maybe_ you're projecting?"

Yamato withdrew his hand like Taichi had suddenly grown hot against his skin, his fingers aching slightly from the aggression with which they were pushed away.

"..Y-you think  _ I'm _ cheating on  _ you _ ?" 

"Well, clearly I don't know anything about what you do while I'm not around..."

Yamato clenched his teeth and inhaled sharply through his nose. After everything he had done, everything he'd been through in his whirlwind _'rock star'_ existence, he hated to be accused of crossing the one line that had remained untouched. All he ever wanted was to protect the person he loved from his shallow farce of a lifestyle, but could he blame Taichi for losing trust in him? 

_ Of course I can, how dare he. _

_ We're supposed to be partners.  _

Yamato raised an arm at Taichi, a shaking fist poised to make contact with the brunette's antagonistic expression. Taichi moved aggressively into the attack, grabbing Yamato's arms and pushing him to the ground.

Now pinning Yamato beneath him, Taichi pulled an arm back readying a return blow. But he hesitated, choking a little when he sees Yamato looking angry, but also desperate and afraid, with a tear starting to pool in the corner of his eye. Taichi's expression freezes as he recalls their first physical fight in the snow all those years ago, and how Yamato was just afraid for a person he cared about. And maybe this time wasn't so different, except just because Taichi could understand Yamato's behaviour, didn't mean he was ready to accept or excuse it. 

Yamato quickly noticed the hesitation and pulled Taichi from his inner monologue with a firm punch to the stomach, making him rock backwards clutching his abdomen in pain. 

Yamato crawled away and readied himself for retaliation, but Taichi stayed where he was sitting on the floor, hair obscuring his face. 

Between the pounding of his own heart in his chest, Yamato heard faint crying.

Not from the physical pain, it was a deep emotional sob that he'd only heard a small handful of times before.

"... Taichi?" 

Brown eyes looked up from under distraught brown hair, red and puffy with overflowing emotions. 

"What happened to us Yama? We used to save the world together…" 

Yamato pursed his lips and held his breath, worried that his next might open floodgates. 

"You said you didn’t mind all the travel and distance, that you loved coming home to me, and now you're asking me to keep a job I hate so you can be alone with your drug habit!" 

Taichi tried to say more, but the words just came out as ugly sobs. He was frustrated. So very very frustrated. He tried desperately to pull himself together, use the heels of his palms to push the tears away, but he couldn't. Two years of pent up emotions flowed through every vein and the brunette was overwhelmed. 

Yamato simply sat for a moment, unsure how to process seeing the sudden display he had caused. Seemingly unconsciously, he slid across the floor to bring Taichi into his chest. The pair sat on the floor for what could have been minutes, or hours, until they were all out of tears. 

Yamato inhaled and smiled into the mess of hair that clearly needed a wash, feeling both their breathing return to a steady pace. 

They silently stand up, still leaning into eachother and Yamato placed a soft kiss on the side of Taichi's face where tears had dried.

“You can hand in your resignation on Monday.”


End file.
